Oftentimes, I hear senior leaders council their front line leaders to “trust their gut.” This advice is usually followed by some kinda story where the senior leader furthers his point by way of his own example. Hard to argue, the young leader often thinks.
Here’s the truth, however. Trusting your gut is really dangerous advice. Few, it turns out, have developed a gut worth trusting. As we study the decisions of high performers in any field, the ones whose intuition are most often on the mark are the ones who have invested the most hours in deep, intentional, domain-specific practice. The kinda practice that leads SEAL’s to almost uniformly trust other SEALs gut feel.
Next time you think about trusting your gut or telling one of your teammates to trust theirs, quickly ask yourself if your intuition has it’s basis in deep, intentional, domain-specific practice. Intuition, turns out, is more of a built skill than one you’re born with. You don’t have to study SEALs to come to this conclusion. A mother of four just looks her fourth in the eye and knows, intuitively, she has a fever of 101 and some kinda junk in her chest. The funniest thing is, this Mom, can’t remember what it felt like when she didn’t…
Is your gut worth trusting? Are you putting in the hours of practice to build one that is? Tell me more, my friend. Tell me more…
BUILT TO LEAD 
Good stuff, Toto… if your gut is only what you “feel” you are trusting your feelings not your deepest held beliefs. Having feelings about something can be a good indicator to slow down and look deeper, when I TRUST my feelings and ACT on them I often end up on a wild ride of regret and get derailed…when I trust my beliefs — and act on THEM — I find I stay on the tracks and my feelings tend to come around. “Which is the engine pulling my train?” is a good question to consider….